Did you know the composite benches in your local park are possibly partly built with used plastic oil containers?
Indeed, as part of the program managed by SOGHU, used mechanical maintenance products -once collected and sorted- go through a recycling process in order to be given a second life. This applies to oil, antifreeze (glycol), oil filters, plastic oil/antifreeze containers and lubricant aerosols.
Long gone is the disposition of those products in landfills: It doesn’t belong there! (Ça va pas là), as our new advertising campaign says so eloquently.
How does it work?
Simple, used mechanical maintenance products are generated by the public (i.e. you handle your car’s oil change in your garage at home), or by large private generators (i.e. mechanic shops). Individuals can bring their used products to a registered collection facility, there are over 1000 in Quebec. Private generators can entrust the collection of their products to a collector. Lastly, products will be delivered to a processor to go through a transformation process and thus get a second life.
Those processors have installations equipped to transform or regenerate products. Each product has its own treatment process: emptied, filtered, cleaned, depressurized, compressed… so on. In the end, transformed products are purchased by companies who will use them as raw material in the manufacturing of other products.
A second life… such as?
Here are some invocative pieces of information and statistics to help better understand.
Oil
The goal is for the oil to regain the necessary properties in order to be used as raw material in the manufacturing of new oil products. 100% of oil collected through SOGHU in Quebec are reused:
- 65% are re-generated and re-refined
- 35% are used as fuel for industrial burners in greenhouses or asphalt plants (MELCCFP approval required)
Antifreeze (glycol)
Used antifreeze is cleaned to become ready to use antifreeze (glycol) again. Therefore, it is simply retransformed into antifreeze.
Oil filters and aerosols
Once depressurized, aerosol containers’ processing is identical to that of filters. They are crushed for the remaining oil to be extracted in order to safely recover the metal. Said metal is then sent to foundries to be used in the manufacturing of other metal products.
Plastic oil and antifreeze (glycol) containers
Plastic oil and antifreeze containers are shredded and decontaminated in order to become, among other things :
- Composite construction materials (park benches, patios, etc.)
- New plastic containers
- Agricultural drains
- Bins, containers and drums
- PVC pipes
- And more!
100% circular economy
By recycling those products in your establishment, or by bringing them back to a nearby collection facility registered with SOGHU, you help ensuring the circular economy of those products!
Find a collection facility!
Become a Collection Facility!
Watch the ad campaign “It doesn’t belong there” (available in French only)
